The Misplaced Ring
by Pesh
Summary: This is the short story I had to write for my English class- it's about what happens to a girl when a Ringwraiths makes nightly visits.Plz read and review!


Lying in her bed completely still, Samantha strained her ears to listen to the gentle rustling that had filled the air shortly after the grandfather clocks downstairs had chimed the midnight hour. I sounded like a cloth-y noise wandering around in the hallway outside her bedroom.  
  
Samantha's first thought was it had been her two cats playing like they usually did in the middle of the night. But Missy was curled up around her feet at the end of Sam's bed, and she could here the gentle purring of Amber cuddled into a stuffed animal on the floor next to the bed. So if it wasn't the cats, then what was it? It wasn't her parents; she could her them snoring in their bedroom down the hall. So then what is that thing outside my room, Samantha thought to herself as the noise continued.  
  
Then, it hit her- intruders. Samantha started to panic, when all of a sudden it stopped. Thinking that maybe the entire thing was her imagination, Samantha rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.  
  
This wasn't the first time this had happened to Samantha; it was maybe the 5th or 6th time. Each time had began and ended the same way- a gentle rustling from out in the hall that soon ended and Samantha forgot quickly. But every time this reoccurred, Samantha would remember the last time. This most recent experience was the strangest of them all, because there was no clear explanation. All the other times Samantha had not known where her cats were, so she assumed it was just the cats making the noise.  
  
It wasn't long after Samantha had fallen back to sleep when the rustling noise started up again, only this time it sounded like it was in her room. Samantha was afraid to open her eyes but she knew she had to. Slowly, she opened one eye, and to her horror, there really was something in her room. It was very dark in her room, so she couldn't see its face, but she could make out that whatever was in her room was very tall and wearing a long black cloak with a hood, and had a gleaming silver something hanging from its belt- a sword! Samantha assumed that by the clumsy way it moved around searching her belongings, it didn't have very good vision.  
  
She ran all the details through her mind to think of what this mysterious thing could be, but she couldn't think of one thing to fit this strange being. So, she decided to wait until it left, and then she would. well, she didn't know what she would do next. In the meantime, Samantha had both her eyes open and was watching it intently.  
  
By then it seemed frustrated that it had not found what it was looking for. The thing turned around and what Samantha saw and heard is something that she never forgot. Inside the hood was a black gaping hole- only it was blacker than black. The creature also screamed, only it wasn't exactly a scream; it was more like a chilling shriek that cut through your skin right to your bones. Just when Samantha was about to scream, the creature left her room. There was only one thing that she could now think of that was exactly like what she just saw- Ringwraiths! So the only other problem besides that there was intruders in her house was that those intruders were supposedly fictional characters!  
  
Samantha decided to go downstairs and get a frying pan in case it came back so she could whack it on the head. As she tiptoed down the stairs, she jumped at the slightest noises, but she told herself to calm down. She opened up the cabinet and selected the largest frying pan her family owned, and turned around to go back upstairs, when she heard something. There was a small bang and immediately after a small male voice said, "Ow!"  
  
"Who's there" Samantha whispered loudly as she swung up the pan ready to strike and turned on the lights simultaneously.  
  
"Don't hurt me!" said the small person that was illuminated by Samantha turning on the lights. He was wearing very strange clothing and he had extremely hairy and ugly feet. In fact Samantha thought he resembled a hobbit..  
  
"A- are you a hobbit?" Samantha asked uncertainly.  
  
"Why yes, can't you tell? But please, don't hurt me, I've only come to look for something I've lost." Said the short man. "And oh, my name is Frodo. Frodo Baggins," he added, looking at the puzzled look on Samantha's face.  
  
It might have been the dream of every Lord of the Rings fan, as Samantha was, to meet one of the fictional characters, but to have them sanding in your family room was just a bit on the strange side.  
  
"So, you lost something'" Samantha said, "maybe that tall freaky dude found it while he was searching my stuff."  
  
"Tall freaky dude?" Frodo said slowly, like he didn't understand.  
  
"Yeah, well I guess there's not many of these things walking around, but if you really are Frodo then you'd know about Ringwraiths."  
  
"Oh yes, indeed, and I'm terrified of them too. Was that what was searching your belongings?"  
  
"I don't think anything else can shriek like they do."  
  
"Well, I know what they're after," Frodo said with a smile.  
  
"Really, what?"  
  
"That," Frodo said, pointing to the chain that hung from Samantha's neck.  
  
"Oh, this thing, you the birthday gift from my boyfriend you mean? That he ordered online and where there's plenty more to be ordered? Mr. Ringwraith should visit Ebay."  
  
Frodo looked alarmed. "You mean you can order the one ring online? Oh, by the way what does 'online' mean?"  
  
"Well they aren't real of course, they're just imitations." Samantha answered.  
  
"Well, I think you ordered what the Ringwraiths are after and what I have to have in my possession so that I can destroy it so they don't and-"  
  
"Wait a second, you mean this is the one ring?" Samantha asked in an awed voice.  
  
"Yes, it is" Frodo simply replied.  
  
"That stuff isn't real. Well at least I thought it was," Samantha said, unsure of herself. "So then if this is the real ring how did I get it?"  
  
"I was actually wondering myself. But didn't you also say that you got it as a gift?" Frodo added.  
  
"Yeah, but he ordered it from a company, so then how did they get it in the first place?"  
  
"I don't know, but if you please, may I have my ring back?" Frodo asked, holding out his hand.  
  
Samantha took the ring in her hand and looked at it. It was her birthday present, and no one else she knew had one, but it did seem like this ring was the cause of the late- night disturbances. She thought back a few weeks and it seemed that they started right after she had her birthday. Reluctantly, she took the chain off her neck and handed it over to Frodo.  
  
Frodo breathed a sigh of relief as he grasped the ring on the chain. "Oh, thank you, now I don't have to worry about where it is! And I want you to have something, since I stole your birthday present." Frodo removed something from underneath his chin and held it out to her. Samantha took it and saw it was his brooch.  
  
"I can't take this," Samantha replied, "it's yours."  
  
"No, keep it, you can remember me that way, and I'll always remember you." When he finished the sentence, he disappeared into thin air right before Samantha's eyes. She didn't really believe what she saw, but he wasn't anywhere to be found. So, Samantha went back upstairs, with the frying pan and brooch in her hand, and went back to sleep.  
  
The next morning, when Samantha woke up, she remembered what a weird dream she had last night, where she met Frodo Baggins and he gave her his brooch. "That would have been cool if it really did happen," Samantha said to herself as she got out of bed, and saw the frying pan she had brought upstairs in her "dream". And the strange thing was that she never has a Ringwraith visit her, ever again. Maybe because she didn't have the one rings anymore, but probably because she imagined the whole thing. Samantha knew though, that even if she had imagined the whole thing, the leaf- shaped brooch that was lying on her dresser was definitely still there. 


End file.
